“The distinction between the fiction-carrying periodical and the nonfiction-carrying periodical (5) _is precisely the distinction between a periodical fulfilling the purposes of the act and the publication which, although periodical in its form, has no true periodicity in its essence_.
“Another consequence of the expansive power of fiction is found in the confusion of the newspaper and magazine types and the unhealthy exaggeration of the modern newspaper, as shown especially in its Sunday editions.
“The newspaper is rapidly being extended into the magazine field at the sacrifice both of the postal revenue and the (6) _true mission of the newspaper. The miscellaneous matter contained in the Sunday issue of a newspaper must of necessity lack the quality to make it socially and educationally valuable._” (Page 37.)
“No fiction necessarily involves the element of periodicity or time publication which is involved in the very idea of a newspaper or periodical. It follows, then, (7) _that the real purpose of the act of March 3, 1879, namely, the diffusion in the quickest possible way at the smallest possible cost of timely information among the people, is perverted when the right to that quick and inexpensive diffusion is extended to the form of fiction_. But the periodical form devoted to fiction, or in which fiction constitutes the predominant feature, is the very form of periodical which serves to swell the second class. The popular demand for fiction seems to be practically unlimited. The temptation offered by the low postal rate to supply that demand through the periodical form is a temptation impossible to resist.” (Page 39.)
I shall make my comment on the foregoing in the order that its italicized _assertions_ are numbered.
(1) The “element of fiction” has not and does _not_ constitute “the propulsive force” stated. Was it “fiction” that propulsed the circulation of _Everybody’s_? of _Pearson’s_? of _The Cosmopolitan_? of _The American_? of _McClure’s_? of _The Saturday Evening Post_? of _The Inland Printer_? of _The Progressive Printer_? or of scores of other monthly and weekly periodicals whose publishers are independent enough to do their own thinking and courageous enough to publish what they and their representatives found to be the truth?